So, I have been doing some stuff ... trying to finish a few things while the muse is singing to me...

First up: Moon Knight







Thoughts?

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//and by muse, I mean Cheap Trick ...

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For my next WIP, I had to go back to last spring/summer, when Hypno scored me a SHIELD HeliCarrier on deep discount. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with it, but one thing I thought would be cool would be to make a shelf (or two) out of it to display some custom SHIELD-type figures on.

1. I took a look at the HeliCarrier and discovered that there wasn't really going to be a centerline that would make for two easy shelves, and decided to just make one deeper one (Mistake #1?) -- I found a mostly continuous line near the 'tower' that would make for a straight cut, and ran it through the table saw with the grinding blade installed.


2/3. I then took a piece of tongue and groove scrap, thinking that the laps would suffice for holding the shelf (not even close) and instead ran it through the table saw at a 45 degree angle (Mistake #2) with the regular blade reinstalled. The other half of this became the wall mount.



4/5. Then, I screwed one of the boards to the deck of the HeliCarrier, after making certain for the 10th time that the angles were going to line up correctly to hold this to the wall, not slide off.



6/7. I started to assemble all the pieces that I wanted to have on the ship, applied the decals, and threw it all in a box for 8 months.



8. I found a decent place on the wall behind the FLAGG dio display, and screwed the mount to the studs (completely ignoring the pre-drilled holes - if that's what they were)


9. I then placed the ship on the mounting rail and ... it immediately began to sag and eventually fell off. Eventually, like in 10 seconds. I wound up drilling another screw through the deck railing, through the top board and into a stud. That seems to be holding.


10. Not putting any figures on this thing for a couple weeks -- just to make sure it isn't going to take a nose dive onto the deck of the FLAGG.


The biggest challenges to this project:

1. I probably shouldn't have decided to make the deck so deep -- the plastic that makes up this toy is super flimsy, and by cutting away a lot of the support pieces from the other side, wound up with a flimsy plastic/wood joint, no matter how many screws I used to secure it.

2. The 45 degree angle just isn't severe enough for such a thin board and top-heavy shelf. I don't know if a 70/20 or 60/30 cut would have been better, but 45 just wasn't enough to hold the shelf on. Also, by trying to hide the board behind the deck and not extending it down far enough, I unintentionally provided a pivot point for the deck to tip off from.

3. That final/top screw wasn't a deal breaker, but the protruding screw head does keep the 'tower' from fully seating in the recess -- I'm going to have to take that piece and cut out the section where the screw head is.

Thoughts?

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Finished up my Yoshimitsu (Tekken) last night ...









When I was done, I showed him to my ol' pal Kilcarr, who said,



and I was all,



and he was like,



so I yelled,



and I signed off.

but he was right ...

Thoughts?

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I was looking over your Helicarrier idea, and I think I get what you were trying to do.

I think I would scrap the piece of wood you have, and get another that is not cut at any angle at all. Then I would build an arm sticking out from the wall under the bottom of the deck, with an insert screwed/glued onto that to fit into that middle section of the deck.

The arm, if flush against the wall and reinforced with an L bracket, would prevent sag. Think of your standard wall mount arm for a tv. Wall plate, arm, tv mount.

Or better yet, find a cheap tv wall mount arm and let it stick out from the wall and put the Helicarrier on that so it can "move" with the dio.


I also bought a few of those Helicarriers when TRU deeply discounted them. Plan to turn one into a modern BF2K ground effect vehicle that is a weapons platform to launch all the Mattel drones I've purchased.

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If I can suggest something I found for using the cleat system in my garage. Check out my rough diagram for clarification. You can make the "green" parts of my sketch from some extra scrap laying around, the longer piece should be about a 1x6 preferably. Attach another small piece of scrap the same thickness as your cleat to the backside at the bottom. Attach the removable part of the cleat at the top. Screw the helicarrier to the whole setup anywhere you want. Then attach the cleat to the wall mounted piece as normal. You may need to paint the cleat to match your wall beforehand but it will not sag. The cleat will catch the top and secure it and the bottom will rest against the wall, providing support. As added support "sandwich" the helicarrier where you attach it to the cleat with a strip of wood on the inside of the helicarrier the whole length of the toy. Not sure if that makes sense at all but hard to explain through typing.

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I like that. Expands more than my idea, and provides more support for the Helicarrier.

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Thanks for the suggestions!

My goal with that smaller cleat system was to hide the mounting completely -- this was made almost impossible by the fact that the plastic is too flimsy to support it's own weight. That would be solved by using some L brackets, but again, I was trying to make the whole mount hidden.

DJ, your idea of the moving TV mount is actually pretty intriguing, and if I were to do this again someday, I might take that route, especially for the idea of being able to move it around, and I wouldn't have had to cut off that one side, losing the stability -

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This is the one I got for my 19 inch TV. Right now it is folded flush against the wall with a 32 inch tv in front of it...

http://amzn.com/B003O1UYHG

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I had a couple more WIPS that I was working on, for the NJC, until I was reminded of the very first rule of NJC, "No Joe" ...

So, I present here my upgraded (Swapped out a boot & detailed a CC gun) HouseBAT v2:




And my BATLer, made from leftover parts of other customs, including batMITE:






Thoughts?

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1st of all. I like everything I've seen in this thread.
I've actually toyed with the same idea for my Helicarrier. Not got to the implementation part of this yet, but I had the same idea, except I was going to hang a quinjet or helicopter from the ceiling and then run a wire to the helicarrier for support from above (kind of pulling up on the carrier). I have a stainless steel wire that is almost invisible.

man those bats are great! the little one-for some odd reason- makes me think of micheal Jackson. a few paint tweaks and a fedora you got the king of pop bot

Loving me some BATS! Those are killer man!

It's the spats with the high-waters. Kilcarr's idea... blame him.

although I do like the look of them


thanks for the kind words, folks!

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